Priming with Honey

poeee · Post by **poeee** » Friday May 25, 2012 10:23 am

My second brew is ready to be bottled and will do so tonight. Most of it will be primed with carbonation drops, but I have a couple of grolsch bottles that I want to try prime with honey.

How much honey should I use in each bottle?

warra48 · Post by **warra48** » Friday May 25, 2012 10:36 am

Same weight of honey as you would use sugar. Honey is almost totally fermentable.
Quite why you want to do this escapes me, as the tiny amount required for priming won't leave any recognisable honey character in your brew.

bullfrog · Post by **bullfrog** » Friday May 25, 2012 10:48 am

I've heard of people having okay results with priming with honey and getting a very subtle honey flavour (never tried it myself,) but I can't imagine it'd be much fun to do per bottle. Bulk-priming would be much easier with a substance of the viscosity of honey.

poeee · Post by **poeee** » Friday May 25, 2012 1:55 pm

I'm only doing a couple of bottles. I'll give it a go and see what happens.

melykabeer · Post by **melykabeer** » Friday May 25, 2012 2:13 pm

I have done this before. I put some into a cup then microwaved it till it boiled, this made sure anything was killed + this makes it runny so its easy to distribute. I cant remember if I could taste honey afterwards.

poeee · Post by **poeee** » Tuesday Oct 02, 2012 6:50 pm

A mate of mine drank the two that I primed with honey and there was a very subtle honey flavour compared to the normally primed bottles. It was a sucess.

barls · Post by **barls** » Tuesday Oct 02, 2012 8:34 pm

melykabeer wrote:I have done this before. I put some into a cup then microwaved it till it boiled, this made sure anything was killed + this makes it runny so its easy to distribute. I cant remember if I could taste honey afterwards.

id be surprised if you tasted it as well.
you most likely destroyed the aromatics of the honey.
you only want to heat it to about 70 degrees at the most if your going to heat it at all.

barrelboy · Post by **barrelboy** » Wednesday Oct 03, 2012 9:29 am

Hi poeee, you will taste some honey but not the character of the honey as when used in the fermentation process. By this I mean when brewed with honey such as bush mallee, blue gum, leatherwood, grey box etc I find the after taste of your brew reflects the type of honey use in a subtle, delicious way,and you know what honey was used. Very moreish.

Cheers BB
(Ps only use 250gm/23 litres)

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